


The Right Thing

by Threshie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of a Case, Angst, Brother Feels, Child Death, Gen, Guilty Dean Winchester, Late Night Conversations, Motel, Protective Dean Winchester, That Look Like Kids, Tired Sam Winchester, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23164687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Threshie/pseuds/Threshie
Summary: Dean can’t sleep after helping put down some vampires that look like children. The hunter involved in the case reminds Dean uncomfortably of himself -- and her vampire sister they just put down reminded him of Sam.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 32





	The Right Thing

Dean couldn’t sleep.

Usually a combination of alcohol and exhausting himself was the ticket to sleeping through the night, but tonight he just didn’t have the heart to self-medicate. In fact, he didn’t want to leave the motel room at all. The hunt they’d just finished was a rough one — dead kids messed Dean up big-time — and he was afraid of what he’d dream about if he did drift off. 

He’d put on a show of getting comfortable in bed for Sam, of course, curling up on his side and hugging the blankets around himself. They’d said goodnight and turned the lights out and fallen silent. After awhile, Sam started to breathe slow and even, and Dean was convinced he was asleep. 

He sat up in bed, letting the blanket fall around his shoulders. Little faces smudged with dirt and blood came back to his mind, along with the aching grip on his chest that he’d failed them. He’d failed to save them. 

It wasn’t some kid’s fault that this type of vampire looked like children and only turned kids into new vampires. Dean couldn’t help thinking about the families of the kids they’d interviewed, how they’d promised to do everything they could to return the children to them safe. It was impossible, and sometimes that’s just how it was, but he and Sam were the people these parents would remember turning their kids into a cold case. Never giving them any closure. 

It clawed at his heart, placing himself in their shoes. What if Sam disappeared one day? What if Dean had no idea the supernatural existed, and trusted the authorities to find Sam, and just…never saw him again? 

What if Sam was with those monsters as a little kid, scared and alone, trusting that Dean would always come to get him, and then Dean never did?

Little faces smudged with dirt and blood. Little faces with fangs and hollow eyes. He could see Sam vividly among them, maybe eight or nine years old, asking Dean why he never came and got him. Asking Dean why he was there to kill him instead of SAVE him.

These vampires didn’t age after being turned. Some of the kids had been kids for decades. One of them was the twin of Andrea, the hunter who had tipped Sam and Dean off to this nest — an adult woman whose sister was eternally a tiny child-shaped monster. She’d become a hunter to take out things like the mysterious thing that had stolen her sister, and after so long, she’d found her again.

Dean hadn’t understood why she didn’t want to go deal with the situation personally — lay her sister to rest herself. He would have done it for Sam. After the hunt, though, he could understand better. She hadn’t wanted to see her sister as a monster. She’d wanted to remember her as she was when they were little girls, before all of this.

Dean glanced over at Sam’s big form curled in his bed in the dark. For some reason, he couldn’t shake the image of his little brother as a vampire, as a child. He was starting to shiver, but made no move to pull the blanket up around his shoulders. It was irrational, but he had to see Sam. He had to look him in the face and make sure he was okay. 

Climbing out of bed, Dean stepped over to his brother’s side and leaned down to get a good look at his face. It was no good — his eyes were closed, and his face was in shadow. Dean felt like he couldn’t even blink — Sam might be gone when he opened his eyes again. He might see that little boy with the fangs and accusing stare instead. It made his chest hurt just thinking about it.

Swallowing hard, Dean gripped Sam’s chin and gently turned his head so that light from the window fell across his features. As he did, his brother’s brows furrowed slightly. Abruptly, Sam flinched, scrambling up to lean back on his hands and putting his back to the wall in the same second. 

“Whoa, hey, it’s okay! It’s me,” Dean said quickly, holding his hands up. Great, his ridiculous fears had done this. He felt guilt course through him as Sam’s hazel eyes darted from his face to his hands and back again.

“H-hey,” Sam managed after a moment, visibly relaxing his shoulders. He sat up a little from the wall he’d pressed himself to, looking at Dean with tired eyes. “What’s wrong, why’d you wake me up?”

Dean opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again, looking down at the tangled blankets on the bed. Sam looked and sounded perfectly okay. Even though he’d had no reason to believe otherwise in the first place, Dean was so relieved that it was a struggle not to show it on his face.

“It’s nothin’. Sorry,” he mumbled, and retreated into the bathroom to end the conversation.

By the time he stepped out, he expected Sam to be back asleep. Instead, his brother was sitting up in bed just like Dean had been doing before. The blankets were down around his waist, and his hair was a ruffled mess. He said nothing as Dean made a beeline for his own bed.

“Dean.” He paused beside the bed as he heard Sam say his name. 

Slowly, Dean turned around. Sam had the start of those damn puppy eyes trained on him. 

“The hunt today,” Sam said quietly. “I-I can tell it got to you. You’re a little off.”

Dean could’ve denied it, but if it was that damn obvious, what was the point? He sat on the edge of his bed, running his hands through his hair just to hide his face for a moment.

Sam, in turn, could have asked if Dean wanted to talk about things. Instead, knowing Dean would immediately say no, the smarty pants started talking about things himself.

“I-it kind of got to me, too. I keep thinking about Andrea and all of the parents who’ll never know what happened to their kids.” Sam sighed slowly. “Andrea… She, uh, she reminds me a lot of you, Dean. I mean, having to see your sibling turn into a monster, having to face the possibility of putting them down yourself…”

“If it was me I WOULD’VE done it myself,” Dean said, his voice ragged. The little smudged vampire faces were looking at him in his mind’s eyes. Little, hollow-eyed Sam. 

“Don’t be so sure,” Sam said guiltily. “You didn’t when the psychic powers thing was going on, or when I started drinking demon blood. Not even when I had no soul and was a psychopath, pretty much.” 

“That was different,” Dean insisted. “You were still—” 

He cut himself off, biting his lip.

“Still me?” Sam asked.

“Still savable. There was still something to do besides put you down. Dad didn’t see that, Sammy — he saw anything supernatural as evil, and I don’t care what you say, you have NEVER been that.”

Sam was silent for a long moment, swallowing hard. From the corner of his eye, Dean was pretty sure he saw his brother bow his head.

“So if I was one of those vampire kids, would you be able to do it? If there was no way to save me, even if I wasn’t evil, you’d do the right thing and take me out?”

Dean gritted his teeth and said nothing, turning and crawling back into his bed. 

Pulling the blankets up over his shoulder, he mumbled, “You’re not one of them. You’re not.”

Sam said nothing. After awhile, Dean heard him laying back down, the rustle of the blankets smoothing into stillness.

He stared off into the dark, into the eyes of little vampire Sammy staring sad and hollow back. 

No. The answer to Sam’s question was no. 

No matter what Sam might become, he would always be Dean’s brother, and Dean would place him before everything — before his own life. Before the lives of others. 

Before their humanity.

In his mind’s eye, he held a hand out to the little vampire version of his brother, and he could see the desperate pleading hunger on Sammy’s face as he reached small hands back. He closed his eyes and smiled, and waited for the prick of little fangs.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my fic! After all of the times he's been faced with killing Sam or with Sam becoming something supernatural, I figured Dean would identify with Andrew the hunter and her vampire twin sister far too much, and this fic sort of just wrote itself. Comments and kudos always appreciated! ♥


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